OLC participation and "red marks"

The latest SSA Newsletter says:

"OLC entrants in the USA will hopefully at least double in size again
this year - with more and more pilots going
out away from the home airport. OLC has grown significantly over the
past three years, with participation
coming from many different groups. We are looking at posting scores and
rankings by Region, or by
State. And, as this year at Arlington, awards will be presented at
Memphis Convention next year."

More participation is good, but for that to happen OLC will have to be
attractive to pilots. I looked at all US flights starting on Saturday,
March 11. During that time, 262 flights were made with a score over
the 50 point minimum, and 70 of those flights had the "red mark." I
think it probably is safe to say that not one of those 70 red marks was
due to a pilot who was cheating.

When over a quarter of pilots get no score for their flights, a lot of
pilots will decide not to continue to participate (and the above
statistics probably are skewed due to pilots who already have dropped out).

"Greg Arnold" wrote in message
news:HreWf.911$I%6.121@fed1read12...
The latest SSA Newsletter says:

"OLC entrants in the USA will hopefully at least double in size again this
year - with more and more pilots going
out away from the home airport. OLC has grown significantly over the past
three years, with participation
coming from many different groups. We are looking at posting scores and
rankings by Region, or by
State. And, as this year at Arlington, awards will be presented at Memphis
Convention next year."

More participation is good, but for that to happen OLC will have to be
attractive to pilots. I looked at all US flights starting on Saturday,
March 11. During that time, 262 flights were made with a score over the
50 point minimum, and 70 of those flights had the "red mark." I think it
probably is safe to say that not one of those 70 red marks was due to a
pilot who was cheating.

When over a quarter of pilots get no score for their flights, a lot of
pilots will decide not to continue to participate (and the above
statistics probably are skewed due to pilots who already have dropped
out).


I noticed last season 'first timers' were sometimes 'red-marked' but pilots
quickly learned how to upload flights. I suspect this year will be the
same. Listening to conversations around the airfield, it seems that most of
the problem were with files from older Cambridge loggers that didn't produce
a file with all the needed parameters. Perhaps someone can post the
proceedure to get a good file.

My Volksloggers always produced good OLC files.

Bill Daniels

Link to thread with one pilots directions for submitting
with the older Cambridge loggers....if you poke around
the OLC site, they have their version of these directions
as well.

http://www.abqsoaring.org/viewThread.php?threadID=68

The older Cambridges are covered in the other threads and pilots need
to familiarize themselves with the procedures. The OLC remains a
shifting paradigm, but it's pretty cool.

At the SSA Governors and Record Keepers breakfast at the convention, we
discussed the pros and cons and wants. The regional filters were set
up without discussion or purpose. To me, as an SSA state governor,
regional filters are pretty useless. There also are no plans for
regional awards, so I see little point in regional filters. State
filters I would find useful and would enough granularity in searches to
query for flights originating in this state, terminating in this state,
and both originating and terminating in this state. However, there are
'borderline' soaring sites that actually fly their flights in adjacent
states and regions, just to complicate things. It may be for some of
us that raw data file access would be the best alternative in the near
term.

Frank Whiteley

Frank Whiteley wrote:
The older Cambridges are covered in the other threads and pilots need
to familiarize themselves with the procedures. The OLC remains a
shifting paradigm, but it's pretty cool.

At the SSA Governors and Record Keepers breakfast at the convention, we
discussed the pros and cons and wants. The regional filters were set
up without discussion or purpose. To me, as an SSA state governor,
regional filters are pretty useless. There also are no plans for
regional awards, so I see little point in regional filters. State
filters I would find useful and would enough granularity in searches to
query for flights originating in this state, terminating in this state,
and both originating and terminating in this state. However, there are
'borderline' soaring sites that actually fly their flights in adjacent
states and regions, just to complicate things. It may be for some of
us that raw data file access would be the best alternative in the near
term.

Frank Whiteley


A regional filter is useful for Region 12 (Southern California), as
California essentially is two separate soaring areas.

Stewart Kissel wrote:
Link to thread with one pilots directions for submitting
with the older Cambridge loggers....if you poke around
the OLC site, they have their version of these directions
as well.

http://www.abqsoaring.org/viewThread.php?threadID=68

Good directions, but I think he is wrong that you have to change the
file name if you need to do the process a second time. It is true that
OLC wants to use the old uploaded file the second time, but you can
force it to use the new file by clicking on the button that allows you
to upload a new file.

I don't presently have a flight on OLC that I can open, so I can't say
just how you do this, but I have done it several times without any problem.

Last Saturday it was 14 of 33 flights (42 percent) which were red
marked, and I know many of those are experienced OLCers who have been
succesfully submitting flights for years.
Yes, most had Cambridge loggers. Things have definitely gone downhill
for this substantial subset of pilots.

Even if you have a valid CAI file and follow the whole CAI2IGC song
and dance to the letter, there is a substantial probability you will
not get scored because the OLC software doesn't know how to handle
certain glitches that sometimes appear in the Cambridge logs, even
though SeeYou handles them just fine.

But hey, in this post 9-11 world we just can't take the risk of a fake
IGC file appearing on the web.

Greg Arnold wrote:
Stewart Kissel wrote:
Link to thread with one pilots directions for submitting
with the older Cambridge loggers....if you poke around
the OLC site, they have their version of these directions
as well.

http://www.abqsoaring.org/viewThread.php?threadID=68

Good directions, but I think he is wrong that you have to change the
file name if you need to do the process a second time. It is true that
OLC wants to use the old uploaded file the second time, but you can
force it to use the new file by clicking on the button that allows you
to upload a new file.

I don't presently have a flight on OLC that I can open, so I can't say
just how you do this, but I have done it several times without any problem.

To Greg's point, the failure rate is still unacceptably high, even when
following the directions. I know - I've tried to help out several
people in my club with Cambridge loggers, and the success rate is only
about 50%. The folks in my club (currently in first place in the US
right now, I might add) , have actually begun to revolt. They've
basically decided that the OLC is "unstable" and are not willing to
invest more computer time trying to get scored. Though that might not
be a fair statement, it is an understandable perception. Given that,
we can expect participation to drop off.

Whether or not we want to blame Cambridge, the OLC, SeeYou, or anyone
else, the problem with the validation of G Records for Cambridge
loggers is a real issue that isn't going away right now. I think we
ought to reconsider whether this Validation is worth the price (ie.
turning off prospective participants). My suggestion is that we ask
OLC to disable Validation until someone comes up with a script that
successfully handles all of the steps required to create an acceptable
output from a Cambridge Logger using a user-friendly interface.
Asking the average glider pilot to manipulate files using a DOS command
prompt is a recipe for failure (or at least good for a laugh or two).


Erik Mann (P3)

p.s. If anyone want an example of the situation, take a look at the
file from Ron Schwartz on 3/27 in the US. The source .CAI file
passes Vali-Cam just fine. Ran CAI2IGC just fine. Output .IGC file
shows the binary .CAI file appended to the IGC file. File still shows
up on OLC as invalid, not to mention that the scoring distance is also
wrong. Would appreciate anyone who can download the file and see if
anything jumps out at you.

Have any of the Cambridge 10/20/25 users contacted
the OLC Group and asked for help? I don't have one
of these Cambridge FR's, but I have e-mailed OLC a
couple of times and they always helped me with 'user
headspace' problems.

I see a lot of notes here on RAS about the problem
and one of our club members has the same issue with
his older Cambridge. Just seems like the comments
should go to OLC directly.

Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA

At 16:30 29 March 2006, Papa3 wrote:

Greg Arnold wrote:
Stewart Kissel wrote:
Link to thread with one pilots directions for submitting
with the older Cambridge loggers....if you poke around
the OLC site, they have their version of these directions
as well.

http://www.abqsoaring.org/viewThread.php?threadID=68

Good directions, but I think he is wrong that you
have to change the
file name if you need to do the process a second time.
It is true that
OLC wants to use the old uploaded file the second
time, but you can
force it to use the new file by clicking on the button
that allows you
to upload a new file.

I don't presently have a flight on OLC that I can
open, so I can't say
just how you do this, but I have done it several times
without any problem.

To Greg's point, the failure rate is still unacceptably
high, even when
following the directions. I know - I've tried to help
out several
people in my club with Cambridge loggers, and the success
rate is only
about 50%. The folks in my club (currently in first
place in the US
right now, I might add) , have actually begun to revolt.
They've
basically decided that the OLC is 'unstable' and are
not willing to
invest more computer time trying to get scored. Though
that might not
be a fair statement, it is an understandable perception.
Given that,
we can expect participation to drop off.

Whether or not we want to blame Cambridge, the OLC,
SeeYou, or anyone
else, the problem with the validation of G Records
for Cambridge
loggers is a real issue that isn't going away right
now. I think we
ought to reconsider whether this Validation is worth
the price (ie.
turning off prospective participants). My suggestion
is that we ask
OLC to disable Validation until someone comes up with
a script that
successfully handles all of the steps required to create
an acceptable
output from a Cambridge Logger using a user-friendly
interface.
Asking the average glider pilot to manipulate files
using a DOS command
prompt is a recipe for failure (or at least good for
a laugh or two).


Erik Mann (P3)

p.s. If anyone want an example of the situation, take
a look at the
file from Ron Schwartz on 3/27 in the US. The source
.CAI file
passes Vali-Cam just fine. Ran CAI2IGC just fine.
Output .IGC file
shows the binary .CAI file appended to the IGC file.
File still shows
up on OLC as invalid, not to mention that the scoring
distance is also
wrong. Would appreciate anyone who can download the
file and see if
anything jumps out at you.

Erik Mann (P3)

p.s. If anyone want an example of the situation, take a look at the
file from Ron Schwartz on 3/27 in the US. The source .CAI file
passes Vali-Cam just fine. Ran CAI2IGC just fine. Output .IGC file
shows the binary .CAI file appended to the IGC file. File still shows
up on OLC as invalid, not to mention that the scoring distance is also
wrong. Would appreciate anyone who can download the file and see if
anything jumps out at you.


I think two things are going on with this file. First, the optimization
software thought he landed near the beginning of the flight, so most of
the distance was not counted. He needs to manually enter the time he
landed, and that should solve this problem. Why did the optimization
software think he landed at the top of a thermal? Who knows. Open the
flight in SeeYou, and the flight is optimized just fine, so it appears
the flight was not uploaded with SeeYou. I think the OLC is using
Strepla as its optimization software for flights that are not already
optimized when uploaded. But SeeYou gets it wrong at times, too.

The other problem is the message " Sorry, Validation Service is current
not running. OLC Team is working on that issue." Apparently some or
all of the earlier Cambridge files are getting the red mark because OLC
can't run its validation software. This has been going on for 3 weeks
now, and certainly would cause unhappiness for a pilot who just made a
tremendous flight. Especially since after going through the CAI 20/25
song-and-dance, you don't know if you did it right until you see the
approved flight on the website.

My personal feeling is that the OLC is a great idea that has been
implemented very poorly:
1. The web interface is very poor, both for those uploading flights,
and those wanting to look at recent flights.
2. It has all the noted problems with older Cambridge loggers,
including rejection of flights that have a single bogus line in the IGC
file.
3. It requires a level of security that is way beyond what is needed
for this type of contest.
4. It requires you to submit a Monday flight by the evening of the next
day (so the flight in question is already beyond the submission date,
and now there probably is no possibility of correcting the distance).
5. The maps on the OLC site are very poor.
6. You must enter a code to view any IGC files (is there really a
problem with automated software downloading hundreds of flights, and if
so isn't there a better way to handle this?).

The founders of the OLC did a fine job implementing a great idea. What
is needed now is to transfer the entire OLC project to new people who
can take it to a higher level.